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GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART
Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858 (celebrating 150 years in 2008), the Gibbes Museum of Art opened its doors to the public in 1905. Located in Charleston’s historic district, the Gibbes houses a premier collection of over 10,000 works, principally American with a Charleston or Southern connection, and presents special exhibitions throughout the year. In addition, the museum offers an extensive complement of public programming and educational outreach initiatives. As the aesthetic heart of the Lowcountry, the Gibbes serves the community by stimulating creative expression, increasing economic vitality through tourism and improving the region’s superb quality of life. MUSEUM HOURS ADMISSION: |
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Exhibitions:
The Charleston Story The Gibbes Museum of Art will present the exhibition Lure of the Lowcountry in the Main Gallery from January 22, 2010 through April 18, 2010. This exhibition features sixteen large scale mixed-media photographs by artist John Folsom (American, b. 1967) selected from his series entitled Lure of the Lowcountry. Folsom’s photographs depict several locations in the region, including Palmetto Bluff and Edisto Island, both in South Carolina, along with Cumberland Island, Georgia. To explore the art-historical precedents of Folsom’s work, this exhibition pairs his photographs with fourteen early Lowcountry landscapes from the Gibbes collection, including paintings by Thomas Coram and Charles Fraser. John Folsom’s process begins with a photographic image that is divided into a grid and printed on separate panels. The panels are then attached to a large wooden panel to create a unified image. However, the grid lines remain visible as a reminder that the image is a construction of the artist’s making, not an objective representation of nature. Folsom pushes this idea further by working the surface of the image with oil paint and sealing it with a wax medium. The technique gives the surface of Folsom’s work a rich patina that suggests the layers of history accumulated in the Lowcountry landscape. Among the earliest landscape paintings of the region, are those by Thomas Coram and Charles Fraser from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During this time period, America did not have an established tradition of landscape painting. Therefore, artists borrowed heavily from British aesthetic traditions, particularly a mode of depiction known as the picturesque. Though Folsom has not directly studied theories of the picturesque, elements of the style certainly are present in his work. This assimilation is the result of Folsom’s knowledge of art history, particularly the early American landscape paintings of the Hudson River School. “The Lowcountry has always captivated the imagination of artists who have visited her salt marshes and majestic oaks. We are delighted to share these images of early landscape painters alongside John Folsom’s contemporary mixed-media landscapes. The juxtaposition of these object reinforces our understanding of the creative process,” said Gibbes Executive Director Angela D. Mack. Lure of the Lowcountry is sponsored by The Charleston Art & Antiques Forum and Charleston Gateway magazine.
Whistler’s Travels The Gibbes Museum of Art will present the work of renowned American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) in the exhibition Whistler’s Travels, in the Rotunda Galleries from January 22, 2010 through May16, 2010. The exhibition features 21 etchings and three lithographs from the Gibbes permanent collection and a local private collection. The etchings and lithographs in Whistler’s Travels were executed during Whistler’s excursions to the English countryside, France, Holland, and Venice, Italy. In the summer of 1858, just three years after James McNeill Whistler arrived in Paris to pursue a profession in the arts, he embarked upon a walking tour of France and Germany. Armed with sketch materials and copper plates, Whistler created detailed drawings of the architecture and inhabitants of the small towns he encountered. Many of the works Whistler produced during this journey were published later that year in his first set of etchings titled Twelve Etchings from Nature, often referred to as the “French Set.” This successful foray into the graphic arts was the start of a life-long devotion to the print medium. Throughout his career, Whistler turned to etching to interpret his surroundings and was renowned for his ability to find picturesque qualities in unlikely subjects. From 1859 and 1863, Whistler divided his time between France and England. During this same time period, Whistler made the first of many visits to the Netherlands, a destination, which over the course of his lifetime became one of his favorites. In 1879, Whistler traveled to Italy and created a series of twelve views of Venice that would eventually establish him in history as one of the world’s finest etchers. “Whistler’s etchings and lithographs are key to telling the story of printmaking in America. We are delighted to showcase these wonderful objects,” said Gibbes Executive Director Angela D. Mack.
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